Замок Шталек: История и Разрушение Крепости на Рейне

12th century fortified castle in Bacharach, Germany

Stahleck Castle (Burg Stahleck) is a 12th century fortified castle in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley at Bacharach in Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It stands on a crag approximately above sea level on the left bank of the river at the mouth of the Steeg valley, approximately south of Koblenz, and offers a commanding view of the Lorelei valley. Its name means "impregnable castle on a crag", from the Middle High German words stahel (steel) and ecke (here: crag). It was the first large castle north of Bingen and Rüdesheim. A "Gozwin von Stalecke" is first mentioned in charters in 1120–21. This was Goswin von Falkenburg, who is also referred to in 1135 by the Latin translation "Cozwinus de Staelechae" and was the first attested holder of the castle in fief. and the Four Valley Region, which consisted of the settlements of Bacharach, Steeg (now part of Bacharach), Diebach and Manubach plus the castles of Stahleck, Fürstenberg and Stahlberg, and made Stahleck the centre of power of the heart of what later became the Rhineland territory of the Counts Palatine. They developed Bacharach into a trading town, among other things for the wine trade, and the castle was thus used to enforce payment of duties. When he went on the Second Crusade, Conrad made Hermann his regent. the marriage, performed by Johann I, Archbishop of Triers, is known as the Stahleck Marriage or the Bacharach Marriage. After Conrad's death, Henry succeeded him as Count Palatine and so came into possession of the castle. However, in 1212 he renounced the title and the rights associated with it in favour of his son Henry the Younger. When the latter died young and childless in 1214, his younger sister Agnes inherited Stahleck. The non allodial remainder of the County reverted to the Crown and was subsequently bestowed on the Bavarian Duke Ludwig I of the House of Wittelsbach.

In order to secure possession also of the castle and the overseership of Bacharach, Ludwig I arranged a marriage in 1222 between his son Otto and Agnes. Under Otto (Otto II) in 1243, the long running conflict with the Archbishopric of Cologne was settled, but did not attempt to capture it. The French soldiers remained until 24 July 1650 but had to vacate the castle under the terms of the Peace of Westphalia, which returned it to the Palatinate and Count Palatine Karl Ludwig. In 1666, he had the castle repaired and made some alterations: he greatly changed the interior of the palas and between it and the northern rampart built a massive new building with a Fachwerk half timbered upper storey. An inscribed stone tablet on the palas commemorates his rebuilding of the castle. During the War of the Palatine Succession, the castle was decisively destroyed, like most of the fortifications in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. Its commander, von Dachenhausen, surrendered it to French troops on 11 October 1688, but on 15 March 1689 they blew it up. The explosion completely destroyed both the ring wall and the keep, the residential buildings burned out in the resulting fire, and debris from the explosion destroyed the Gothic Werner Chapel at the foot of the castle hill. The castle was so heavily damaged that it was not rebuilt. Under the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, the ruin reverted to the Palatinate, where it remained until the dissolution of the County at the end of the 18th century.

After the occupation of the parts of the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine by French Revolutionary troops in 1794, in 1801 the Treaty of Lunéville awarded the ruined castle to the French; in 1804 they offered it for sale. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna resulted in its passing into the possession of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1828 the then Crown Prince Frederick William acquired it and the rubble spread over the courtyard and used to fill the moat. All that remained was the wall of the palas on the courtyard side, the ring wall on the Steeg valley side to the height of the chemin de ronde and a small piece of the inner or shield wall. The ruined castle became well known among romantics and nationalists and was often depicted in the 19th century. Financing of the initial work was ensured by an endowment of
Stahleck became the Association's prestige project. The intention was to completely rebuild the castle. Stahl based his designs on historical models and appended them to remaining structures, but changed his plans again after ancient, previously unknown building foundations came to light in excavations beginning in August 1925. The excavations and the attendant repeated surveying of the site delayed the start of building to late summer 1925. The first building, the longhouse, was intended as a hostel for boys. the palas was completely rebuilt, Stahleck became one of 27 Jugendburgen (youth castles), to be used for indoctrination of teenagers and young adults. Between 1937 and early 1938, the turrets on the shield wall were built and its chemin de ronde roofed over. A visit by Rudolf Hess in June 1938 prompted the start of work to complete the rebuilding of the keep, which was still a ruined stump. The plan was to reconstruct it to a height of 36 m, 7 storeys, and name it the Rudolf Hess Tower. However, the existing foundations would not have been able to bear the weight, so the ruin was pulled down, and in November 1938, work began on a completely new tower on a smaller footprint. Work on this was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. From 1940 to 1942, the castle served as a military hospital. In addition, in November 1940, students from now occupied Luxembourg who had been studying at German and Austrian universities when the war began were forced to attend re education classes there, and eventually a youth re education camp was set up. Male schoolchildren and students from Esch sur Alzette and Echternach were interned at the castle for 4 months as punishment for protesting against the announcement in 1942 of the introduction of required military service in Luxembourg and the forced conscription associated with it, as well as for participating in the general strike which followed. (Girls were sent to a youth hostel at Adenau.) Those of military age were then sent to the front. There is a memorial plaque at the castle, and the State of Rhineland Palatinate and the City of Bacharach have organised memorial events at which contemporary witnesses spoke. Beginning in January 1943, the castle was used as an internment camp for German youth who had shown insufficient loyalty to the Party, such as the founders of the Catholic youth resistance group the Michael Troop; some were taken from Stahleck to concentration camps. From June 1943 to summer 1944, it was a work and military training camp for Germans between 14 and 18 years of age.

Following the end of the war, Stahleck Castle was first used to billet French soldiers, before returning to use as a youth hostel in November 1947. The Health and Welfare Ministry of Rhineland Palatinate opened a youth leadership school at the castle in January 1948 to train prospective hostel managers and staff, but was forced to close it at the end of the same year because of the state's poor financial situation. The hostel itself, however, was unaffected. In 1957 the castle offered 270 beds and 60 emergency spaces and was thus the third largest youth hostel in Rhineland Palatinate, after those in Koblenz and Mainz. In terms of overnight stays, it was in second place with 32,276. Beginning in October 1965, a further building programme was carried out at the castle under government superintendent of works Heinrich Grimm, based on the plans of Stahl, who had died in 1957. This included interior modernisation and renovation and a new administration building. In addition, a large terrace was created on the south side, and beginning in 1966 the still incomplete keep was built up a further 4 m and topped with a tall cone shaped roof. primarily based on the results of excavation and the 1646 engraving by Matthäus Merian. The rebuilding plans were mostly the work of Ernst Stahl, who closely followed Merian's depiction and used other historical models where the engraving gave no information. For example, the almost rectangular shape of the castle, measuring approximately 55 by 24 m, shows the typical regular layout and clear divisions of a castle of the Hohenstaufen period. The size of the modern buildings approximates that of those in the original castle; the oldest portions are the foundations of the keep, parts of the cellar under the palas and sections of the curtain wall. Since the castle is used as a hostel, it is not available for tours. However, the courtyard is accessible to the public and offers a fine view of the Rhine, since on that side there is only a low parapet.

Although documentary evidence leads to the conclusion that the castle was built in the 12th century at the latest, the archaeological investigations have been unable to provide proof. Stahl believed, however, that the preserved foundations of the bergfried (keep) should be dated to the 12th century. The keep is a round tower 7.5 m in diameter which stands on bedrock in the centre of the inner courtyard. It has walls 2 metres thick and is topped by a 16 m cone shaped roof. The top floor, 4 m high, was added later, which can be seen from the different colour of the stone.

The castle is defended from the high hillside on the west by a chemise wall which has been fortified to form a shield wall 2.6 m thick. There is an interior stairway, which does not, however, reach as far as the roofed chemin de ronde at the top of the wall; it is used to reach the upper floors of the 1930s tower building. Some of the tall, narrow embrasures were subsequently walled closed at the base and fitted with wooden frames to absorb the recoil of early firearms. Their fishtail shape indicates that the wall dates to the first half of the 14th century. At the top they are flanked on both sides by polygonal turrets which replaced two earlier round towers. Below the shield wall is a moat cut out of the rock. A section of this measuring 18 by 13 metres is separated off and filled with water, doubling as a cistern. A stone bridge leads over the moat to the main entrance; the gateway is guarded by an embrasured turret above and leads to an elongated zwinger.

The former boys' hostel is now called the longhouse. It has a ground floor of crushed stone and a Fachwerk first floor. The slate roof has a dormer on the courtyard side with a curved gable. What is now known as the tower building, formerly the girls' hostel, stands against the shield wall. It resembles the longhouse in its details. A walled platform cut out of the rock a little above the castle to the southwest is a post medieval position for artillery aimed at the hillside which was an important part of the castle's defences after the introduction of gunpowder. Its precise date is unknown, but Matthäus Merian's 17th century engraving shows that it existed by 1646.